Executive Summary : | The study directly impact the early diagnosis and successful therapy of patients suffering from potentially fatal histoplasmosis, which is often misdiagnosed as tuberculosis. Thus patients are subjected to unwarranted anti-tubercular therapy. It is observed that histoplasmosis cases are routinely undiagnosed due to lack of expertise and difficulty in its culture growth due to prolong incubation. Furthermore, in routine diagnostic labs culture plates are discarded in less than a week thus isolation in culture is generally negative. The application of direct PCR on clinical specimens suspected of histoplasmosis will help in rapid diagnosis of this potentially fatal disease. In the first year of the project, we found 2% prevalence of histoplasmosis in the Northwestern region of India. The correct diagnosis of histoplasmosis enabled timely administration of amphotericin B and itraconazole, leading to successful therapeutic 23 outcome in 50% of the cases. Thus need for early diagnosis for successful therapy can hardly be overemphasized, as the disease was fatal in 2 of the 4 cases. |